


you start to believe it.

by holdingnotoyou



Series: literature-inspired work. [1]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Head Shaving, M/M, Trench Era, well a mention of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 11:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18738244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdingnotoyou/pseuds/holdingnotoyou
Summary: I think I can remember being dead. Many times, in winter, I approached Zeus. Tell me, I would ask him, how can I endure the earth? -- Louise Glückshort thing. stretching my writing muscles.title from dyin' in la by panic! at the disco.





	you start to believe it.

**Author's Note:**

> > I think I can remember being dead. Many times, in winter, I approached Zeus. Tell me, I would ask him, how can I endure the earth? -- Louise Glück
> 
> short thing. stretching my writing muscles.
> 
> title from dyin' in la by panic! at the disco.

"I think I can remember being dead." A kiss against his jawline, beneath his ear, against his collarbone. 

"What do you mean?" Fingers brush across the back of Tyler's dried hands, calloused fingers caught on cracked skin. There's blood on the back of his hand, dried around the cuts in his skin. It's hard these days to do anything but rot in the middle of the camp, the two of them surrounded in each other's heat and course touches. 

A thick swallow wrecks through his throat. A breeze carries across the camp and cuts through the thin material of the tent, shooting a shiver down Tyler's spine as Josh's nose presses into the side of his throat. "In the winter." He tries to clarify. There is no clarity. "Many times." 

Josh nods against his skin, brushes his fingers through the small bit of Tyler's hair at the back of his neck. It had grown out during his last time in DEMA, and the moment they'd stepped foot back into camp, Tyler had pressed the pair of clippers into Josh's hand and murmured, "Mohawk?" Josh remembers grinning wickedly, pushing Tyler down onto their small shared cot as he clippers hummed to life beneath his touch. "Okay." He says, nothing more. Nothing less.

"Would you still love me if I was dead?" Tyler's voice is quiet now, not that it wasn't before. There's a sense of mystery behind his words, a sense of insecurity. Who could love someone who rises in the night, who spends their evenings watching vultures and aching for the release of a higher power? Who could love a dead man? 

Josh shifts. Josh's arms wind tighter around Tyler's torso. Josh's lips press against Tyler's Adam's apple. "I would love you no matter what," The words are honest as they're breathed against Tyler's skin, "I would love you if you were dead. I would love you if you were still in there, still fighting for your life. For yourself." 

"Does that count as being dead, too?" Tyler asks, lips quirked into the ghost of a smile. "Because sometimes, I think it might be the same thing." Josh laughs, hollow against Tyler's skin as he picks his head up. Tyler tips his, and their lips meet with a practiced ease. It's a quick kiss, one that doesn't lead to anything more. Josh has to leave soon, has to leave Tyler with Jenna as he rescues more and more Banditos trapped in DEMA. It'll be days, maybe even weeks until Tyler sees him again--there's a part of him that wonders if he can beg Josh to not leave.

Josh has to leave. Tyler has to be okay with it.

"Does that mean I resurrect you every time I bring you home?" Home. DEMA isn't home, their campsite is home. Josh is home.

Josh is home. 

"Kiss me again, and I think I may be alive enough to just answer your question." Josh grins, it meets his eyes and Tyler's heart stumbles in his chest, trips over its own two feet as Josh's fingers thread through the hair brushing the back of Tyler's neck. His head tips forward as Josh wills it to, and their lips meet. They're the ebb and the flow, the steady rise and the fall of a breathing chest, the steady brush of a wave against a shore on a calm day. Tyler's fingers tangle in the front of Josh's hoodie, catching on the tape and scraping his nails against the yellow tape. 

Josh breaks over him like a wave. The safety of yellow breaks over him like a wave. The sense of home breaks over him like a wave. 

Tyler breaks. Tears collect in the corners of his eyes and Josh breathes in the jagged breath he releases. "You're okay," Josh murmurs, nails scraping against the stubble on Tyler's scalp, nosing at his boyfriend's cheek, "You're safe with me." 

Tyler tips his head, presses a kiss against the corner of Josh's mouth and sighs. His cheeks are wet with tears, salted water clinging to his eyelashes as he stares at the man who had changed everything for him. "Stay with me," He breathes, voice quiet as he pulls himself closer to Josh's chest, "Just for tonight." Josh nods, and somehow, it's everything. 


End file.
